TRAINING
What is Career Matrix ?
"How do we apply our organizational commitment to quality to the way we lead, mentor, teach, and develop our students?" We built this approach to instruction on the foundation provided by five of our core values: Respect, Quality Assurance, Listening, Understanding, and Accountability. We commit to acting on the foundation provided by these values whether we teach jobseekers working to enter IT or whether we teach a company's employees so that they continue growing into their current roles or prepare for future roles.
We frequently encounter many capable individuals who want to kickstart a career working in a high growth bright outlook role, yet they are under employed or unemployed. Often, they experience the double bind that, while they are developing skills for specific job roles, employers want to hire people who’ve already gained experience working in that job role. For the job seeker to gain that experience they first must work in a job performing those skills.
EDI Matrix decided to apply our experience in training, staffing, mentoring, and consulting to this question to develop the market’s missing link: A matrix that incorporates gaining work experience into the learning process. Introducing Career Matrix.
Career Matrix fosters an environment in which each learner can transform her/his understanding, confidence, and skills (behavior) so that each can become a more productive worker, take on new responsibilities, and transition into new roles/careers. To facilitate a transformative environment, we founded Career Matrix’s training approach on the core values of respect, quality assurance, listening, understanding, and accountability.
How we interact with prospective students, current students, and former students is built on respecting and showing respect to each and to all. To support respecting others, we practice focused attention by, first, adopting the related values of Asking Questions and Listening Closely.
Before, during, and after one trains with us, we assume and practice respect for each person by asking several questions to help us get to know each prospective student and their learning needs. Translating this value into our classrooms, our teachers model an inquisitive approach for multiple reasons. First, practicing what Edgar and Peter Schein call Humble Inquiry fosters stronger teacher-student relationships by engaging students with course material in ways that moves them to think critically to untangle complex situations that arise while they apply what they're learning to real world situations. Humble Inquiry also flows more effectively from teachers who, themselves, want to listen well and understand their students, and are driven to keep asking more effective questions. Second, as Michael Marquardt demonstrates, teachers, as classroom leaders, who foster a questioning culture strengthen individual and organizational learning by improving their ability to make decisions, solve problems, and adapt to change, while strengthening their self-awareness.
Asking effective questions goes hand in hand with Listening Closely to the answers they yield (or prompt). Career Matrix teachers practice the International Learning Association's Integrative Listening Model (ILM), which decides to go beyond mere hearing to include four additional stages. First, teachers prepare themselves to listen by understanding their listening context, their students and the listening filters they may apply, as well as the learning task at hand. Second, Career Matrix teachers apply and model the Learning Process Model (LPM): Receive, Comprehend, Interpret, Evaluate, Respond. Third, Career Matrix teachers assess how well they themselves listen effectively, and course correct as needed. Forth, Career Matrix teachers establish for themselves new listening goals. Listening well requires ongoing practice, self-evaluation, and growth. By doing so, teachers model for students both good listening and good growth strategies.
Career Matrix inherits its Quality Assurance DNA from EDI Matrix’s deep roots in Quality Assurance and seeks to integrate QA best practices into each phase of the learning journey. Certainly part of the transformational impact training and education can make on learners is by helping them develop new understanding and new practice skills relating to the job roles they seek.
The US Department of Labor studies job role performance trends and projects which job role types will increase or decrease in demand for each year and each decade. When Career Matrix considers developing training/development programs for job role types, we begin by aligning our organizational strengths with job roles the US Department of Labor projects to grow in demand and provide regular opportunities for those seeking new roles. Before we meet an individual prospective student we have already identified job role types that fit our strengths, that project frequent openings.
The US Department of Labor defined Job Role
Related Professional Certifications
Key job related skills
Career Matrix then works backward from these external standards and job competencies to develop courses that help learners acquire these job related competencies. We, then, build into each course multiple ways of assessing both whether students are mastering these competencies and if we are doing our part effectively to ensure that they master them.
Competencies Based Learning, Instruction, and Assessment: We assess and control the quality of our instructional services and their impact on students by assessing and monitoring each one’s activity, lesson, class, and program performance against targeted job role centered competencies. Our instructors, managers, directors, and other professionals, then, can encourage, mentor, and model ways each student can practice any skills with which they’re still wrestling to ensure that they master them. Assessing and monitoring gives us the data we need to make sound instructional and mentoring decisions for each learner.
Career Matrix defines what we mean by “understanding” through incorporating the widely adopted “Six Facets of Understanding” (Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J., 1998) and the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework from which it comes to the way we design and teach our courses. Designing our courses following the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework allows us to ensure students that what they learn will help them perform their new job role, since we designed each course using the most widely recognized job related skills as our guide. Doing so also gives us an additional rubric against which to assess our effectiveness at cultivating their understanding.
Developing students’ abilities to understand and to think critically go hand-in-hand. To help students engage intellectually with, and to think critically about their work as they develop stronger capacity for higher order thinking in general, we incorporate into our course design, teaching, and assessment methods the Foundation for Critical Thinking's recommendations for engaging learners in higher order thinking challenges about the content and skills they’re acquiring. We implement this by applying the Foundation's "Criteria for Critical Thinking Assignments," and assess students' work against the Foundation's "Critical Thinking Grid." We, then, gradually help students move toward what the Foundation considers to be "Exemplary" higher order thinking skills.
Career Matrix provides job role centered training and credentialing (certification) programs consisting of multiple courses per program. We has chosen each program’s courses based on multiple criteria including, but not limited to,
⦁ Does a course teach skills someone performing this job role would likely know how to do?
⦁ Has the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics validated these skills as appropriate for this job role?
⦁ Does a course prepare students to earn an externally authenticated credential/certification related to that job role?
⦁ Do employers hiring people to fill this job role seek this certification as a way to pre-authenticate an applicant’s potential to be able to perform duties related to this job role?
Through each program, Career Matrix seeks to foster learner transformation. To provide the environment in which transformation can occur, Career Matrix thoroughly integrates training, mentoring, project assistance, and the potential for a paid 16-week Internship or CCPT (Citizens Curricular Practical Training). By integrating training, mentoring, and project assistance, we intend to expand each learner’s understanding, shape new behaviors consistent with their targeted job role, and expand how each learner perceives both themselves and others as they grow.
Within each course that contributes to a program, students experience both asynchronous and synchronous instruction. Each course lesson presents learners opportunities to complete a blend of reading and reflection assignments in which they practice the IBAC model (What is the issue involved? What is/are the appropriate best practices that apply in this case? What is your analysis of the situation? What is your conclusion on how to act in light of what you’ve learned?). Assignments will vary based on course and lesson content and on which competencies the student is developing. As students complete each lesson and course, they discuss and collaborate with fellow learners while increasing their understanding of the material and cultivating their skills related to developing their targeted job role competencies.
Outside the classroom, Career Matrix reinforces new behaviors students are developing by pairing them with mentors who are practicing professionals in related fields, and by giving them several ways to work on real projects under the leadership of their mentors. In the process, learners expand their understanding of what they’re learning, increase their confidence in their own abilities to perform these job related skills, and gain from additional opportunities to think, reflect, dialogue with, and practice under the watchful eyes of their mentors.
This combination of Career Matrix’s values (Respect, Quality Assurance, Accountability), The Matrix (the environment provided by Training, Mentoring and Project Assistance) collectively establishes the foundation on which students learning to think critically, apply their new skills appropriately, and face their future confidently.
Overview
When organizations decide to develop new software to improve their business performance, whether they develop in-house, or hire vendors to develop for them, every development project needs a QA and Testing process and the right people to implement it to ensure that their new creation works appropriately when they launch it. Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers develop and execute software tests to identify problems and their causes. When they identify defects, they document, report, and track them in bug tracking systems so that software developers know what needs to be fixed to ensure an effective launch. They also join design reviews to collaborate on product designs, functional requirements, operational characteristics, and schedules.
This program equips either those with prior business or IT experience, or those attempting to get into the field with the skills and professional credentials to perform effectively in this vital role. It achieves this goal by locating the broader context within the Agile principles and practices adapted and applied through the Scrum framework and Kanban methods.
Prerequisites
This program assumes that a potential student has developed general end user computer proficiency (e.g. competent user of an Operating System and of common productivity applications such as Microsoft Office applications).
Admission Requirements (complete the following LinkedIn Learning Courses, and/or Learning Paths or demonstrate equivalent proficiency)
Windows 11 Essential Training
Word Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Outlook Essential Training (Microsoft 365)
Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
PowerPoint Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Programming Foundations: Software Testing/QA
Learning Path: Become a Software Tester
Grammar Foundations
Advanced Grammar
Writing in Plain English
Writing in Plain Language
Organizing an Outline
Note-Taking for Business Professionals
What is Azure DevOps?
Overview of Azure DevOps
Learning Azure DevOps
Getting Started with Software Testing
Software Testing: Tools
Software Testing Foundations: Test Planning
Succeed in Software Testing
Outcome
This program, then, equips those seeking to enter the Development side of IT, and through Software Quality Assurance and Tester role, to increase the organizations chances of releasing software into production that both works as its stakeholders need and fulfills its function safely and securely.
Milestones
In the process, students will prepare for and earn the following industry recognized professional certifications:
Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
Certified Associate in Software Quality (CASQ)
Lean Six Sigma Yellow (LSSYB)
Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA)
Certified Associate in Software Testing (CAST)
Graduation Requirements
Complete all program related prerequisite courses.
Complete all program assignments, exercises, and courses.
Complete all assigned program projects.
Complete program mentored experiences.
Prepare for and complete program/job related professional certification exams.
Complete all program related job readiness assignments.
Complete program related CCPT (paid internship), IF selected.
Targeted Job Roles
15-1253.00 Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, IT Analyst, QA Analyst, SQA Analyst
Total Hours : 216
Overview
Business Analysts as Technical Communicators, both need strong writing and overall communication skills. Writing technical materials takes many forms. Business analysts may document business requirements and use cases, user stories, business rules, process models, system requirements, as well as technical manuals that include application or system operating, and/or maintenance instructions. Business Analysts function, within an organization, as change agents who define needs and recommend solutions that deliver value. This program trains students on the best practices of Agile/Scrum, Business Analysis, and Technical Communication to equip students for careers as either IT Business Analysts or Management Analysts.
Admission Requirements (complete the following LinkedIn Learning Courses, and/or Learning Paths or demonstrate equivalent proficiency)
Windows 11 Essential Training
Word Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Outlook Essential Training (Microsoft 365)
Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
PowerPoint Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Note-Taking for Business Professionals
Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset
Effective Listening
Improving Your Listening Skills
Improve Your Technical Communication Skills
Tech Career Skills: Effective Technical Communication
Critical Thinking for More Effective Communication
Determining and communicating technical requirements
Translate technical information
Talking tech to a non-tech audience
Outcome
This program helps existing analysts and those seeking a new career as an IT Business Analyst or Management Analyst to develop the awareness and skills for working in an Agile culture, to work effectively in gathering requirements, document requirements, act as a liaison between stakeholders, developers, and project teams to ensure that the right solution is created and delivered to stakeholders. This program also develops strong skills as technical writers. Strong technical writing skills are both vital to the business analyst and can equip the right people for careers as Technical Writers.
Targeted Job Roles
13-1111.00 Management Analyst, Business Analyst
Milestones
Along the way, students will prepare for and earn the following industry recognized professional certifications:
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Certification
- Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
- Certified Professional Technical Communicator
(CPTC) Foundation - Certified Professional Technical Communicator
(CPTC) Practitioner
Graduation Requirements
Complete all program related prerequisite courses.
Complete all program assignments, exercises, and courses.
Complete all assigned program projects.
Complete program mentored experiences.
Prepare for and complete program/job related professional certification exams.
Complete all program related job readiness assignments.
Complete program related CCPT (paid internship), IF selected.
Targeted Job Roles
15-2051.01 Business Intelligence Analysts, Data Analysts, Market Intelligence Analyst
Total Hours : 144
Overview
Technical Writers and Business Analysts, as Technical Communicators, both need strong writing and overall communication skills. Writing technical materials takes many forms. Technical Writers and business analysts may document business requirements and use cases, user stories, business rules, process models, system requirements, as well as technical manuals that include application or system operating, and/or maintenance instructions. Both function, within an organization, as change agents who define needs and recommend solutions that deliver value. This program trains students on the best practices of Agile/Scrum, Business Analysis, and Technical Communication to equip students for careers in either IT Technical Writing or Business Analysis.
Admission Requirements (complete the following LinkedIn Learning Courses, and/or Learning Paths or demonstrate equivalent proficiency)
Windows 11 Essential Training
Word Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Outlook Essential Training (Microsoft 365)
Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
PowerPoint Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Note-Taking for Business Professionals
Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset
Effective Listening
Improving Your Listening Skills
Improve Your Technical Communication Skills
Tech Career Skills: Effective Technical Communication
Critical Thinking for More Effective Communication
Determining and communicating technical requirements
Translate technical information
Talking tech to a non-tech audience
Outcome
This program helps existing analysts and those seeking a new career as an IT Business Analyst or Management Analyst to develop the awareness and skills for working in an Agile culture, to work effectively in gathering requirements, document requirements, act as a liaison between stakeholders, developers, and project teams to ensure that the right solution is created and delivered to stakeholders. This program also develops strong skills as technical writers. Strong technical writing skills are both vital to the business analyst and can equip the right people for careers as Technical Writers.
Targeted Job Roles
13-1111.00 Management Analyst, Business Analyst
Milestones
Along the way, students will prepare for and earn the following industry recognized professional certifications:
Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Certification
Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) Foundation
Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) Practitioner
Graduation Requirements
Complete all program related prerequisite courses.
Complete all program assignments, exercises, and courses.
Complete all assigned program projects.
Complete program mentored experiences.
Prepare for and complete program/job related professional certification exams.
Complete all program related job readiness assignments.
Complete program related CCPT (paid internship), IF selected.
Total Hours : 144
Overview
Business Intelligence Analysts create financial and market intelligence by querying data repositories and generating periodic reports. They devise methods for identifying data patterns and trends in available information sources. They set context and better communicate vital business intelligence. They collect, analyze, and report on data can drive priorities and lead business decision-making.
This program assumes that a potential student has developed general end user computer proficiency (e.g. competent user of an Operating System and of common productivity applications such as Microsoft Office applications) as well as critical thinking, database foundations, and an overview of the Data Analyst role.
Admission Requirements (complete the following LinkedIn Learning Courses, and/or Learning Paths or demonstrate equivalent proficiency)
Word Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Outlook Essential Training (Microsoft 365)
Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
PowerPoint Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Note-Taking for Business Professionals
Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset
Database Foundations: Intro to Databases
Become a Data Visualization Specialist: Concepts
Become a Data Analytics Specialist
Outcome
This program helps existing analysts and those seeking a new career in Business Intelligence to develop the skills and proficiency with analytical tools to work effectively either within IT or within non-IT departments (wherever organizational leaders need to leverage the power of data for making sound decisions).
Milestones
Along the way, students will prepare for and earn the following industry recognized professional certifications:
- Tableau Desktop Specialist
- Tableau Certified Data Analyst
- CompTIA Data+
- CertNexus Certified Data Science Practitioner (CDSP)
Graduation Requirements
Complete all program related prerequisite courses.
Complete all program assignments, exercises, and courses.
Complete all assigned program projects.
Complete program mentored experiences.
Prepare for and complete program/job related professional certification exams.
Complete all program related job readiness assignments.
Complete program related CCPT (paid internship), IF selected.
Targeted Job Roles
15-2051.01 Business Intelligence Analysts, Data Analysts, Market Intelligence Analyst
Total Hours : 240
Overview
Web and Digital Interface Designers design digital user interfaces or websites, develop and test layouts, interfaces, functionality, and navigation menus to ensure compatibility and usability across browsers or devices. Web and Digital Interface Designers may use web framework applications as well as client-side code and processes. They may evaluate web design following web and accessibility standards, and may analyze web use metrics to optimize websites for marketability and search engine ranking. They, further, may design and test interfaces that facilitate the human-computer interaction and maximize the usability of digital devices, websites, and software while focusing on aesthetics and design. Finally, they create graphics used in websites and manage website content and links.
Targeted Job Roles
15-1255.00 Web and Digital Interface Designers
Prerequisites
This program assumes that a potential student has developed general end user computer proficiency (e.g. competent user of an Operating System and of common productivity applications such as Microsoft Office applications).
Admission Requirements (complete the following LinkedIn Learning Courses, and/or Learning Paths or demonstrate equivalent proficiency)
Word Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Excel Essential Training (Office 365/Microsoft 365)
Note-Taking for Business Professionals
Content Creation: Strategy and Tools
Writing a Compelling Blog Post
Introduction to Web Design and Development
Outcome
This program prepares students for careers in Web and Digital Interface design by developing familiarity with managing design/development projects within an Agile context following the Scrum framework. It also helps themunderstand the psychology behind UX/UI Logic and Design, and gives them opportunities to use widely adopted Front-End design and development tools such as Adobe Photoshop, HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
Milestones
Along the way students will prepare for and earn the following industry recognized professional certifications:
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM) Certification
- Adobe Certified Professional in Visual Design Using Adobe Photoshop
- CIW: User Interface Designer (1D0-621)
Graduation Requirements
Complete all program related prerequisite courses.
Complete all program assignments, exercises, and courses.
Complete all assigned program projects.
Complete program mentored experiences.
Prepare for and complete program/job related professional certification exams.
Complete all program related job readiness assignments.
Complete program related CCPT (paid internship), IF selected.
Total Hours : 240